The Blood on Trump's Hands

There is no end to the amount of suffering that is being perpetrated against the world by virtue of giving so much power to someone as undeserving as Donald Trump. The man has been coasting his entire existence on social privilege and wealth, using it primarily to better his own life at the expense of others.

The result is that America, a country that's been no angel from the beginning, has taken on a passive role while the blood on Trump's hands seeps up resources to enrich the wealthiest among us. The strategies adopted by too many instill a fear that Trump will remain in power longer than we can afford—that, at some point, all of our blood will be on Trump's hands.

Palestinians

Palestinian blood is on Trump's hands. Republican strategist Steve Schmidt says Trump's decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would make things worse in the Middle East, and it seems Schmidt was right. According to the Palestinean Health Ministry, the day the embassy opened in Jerusalem saw the needless death of 58 Palestinians and 2,771 more injured.

The march to the border of Israel had been going on for weeks prior to the opening of the embassy. It started on March 30th, 2018, and is one in a series of marches known as the "Great March of Return." This particularly deadly clash occurred at the same time that Jared Kushner, the embodiment of nepotism and corruption, was delivering a speech at a lavish opening ceremony at the temporary site of the US Embassy. It's also not only the case that the actual embassy site has yet to be chosen; most of the Israeli government remains in Tel Aviv.

As reported by The New York Times, the Israeli government had made plans to transition roughly 2,700 employees to Jerusalem but had missed its own 2015 deadline and moved it forward to 2019. Many say that the move was just President Trump trying to shore up his base. It must be noted that, yet again, President Trump was willing to compromise brown bodies to achieve his agenda. That's because he's a bigot.

Puerto Ricans

Puerto Rican blood is on Trump's hands. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Trump's bigotry translated into slowed relief efforts to deliver goods and electricity to the island. This meant, among other things, that food spoiled, disease spread, and urgent care was impossible to deliver. This is shocking despite America's colonist relationship with Puerto Rico because of the depths of Trump's inhumanity and bigotry.

The Worst of Us threw a roll of paper towels at an audience of distressed people for a photo op, he argued with the mayor of Carmen Yulín Cruz and the mayor of San Juan, he told Puerto Rico that, "you've thrown our budget a little out of whack," and he minimized the suffering and deaths of Puerto Ricans by comparing the death toll to that of Hurricane Katrina. Of course, even this statistic can never be truly known because Puerto Rico was burning its dead. We may never know how many people the hurricane really killed. These are crimes against humanity.

Gun Deaths

Shooting victims' blood is on Trump's hands. In the time that Trump has been President, we've had the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history. The Las Vegas shooting claimed 58 lives, The Pulse nightclub shooting had 49 killed, and the Parkland shooting saw 17 high schoolers slaughtered. In all these instances, we knew that the culprit had access to high ammunition weaponry, but Trump and his administration continues to ignore possible gun control solutions.

A "mass killing" or "mass shooting" is any incident where four or more people are killed without a "cooling off" period. These occur far more often than the tragedies that earn widespread media attention. Then there are all the people, usually women, killed in domestic disputes; and all the accidental discharges that claim lives. President Trump is doing nothing in the slightest about all this needless death.

White Supremacist Terrorism

Those killed by white supremacists have their blood on Trump's hands. His department of justice chooses not to focus on homegrown domestic terrorism when it's produced by white men even though the FBI considers white supremacist groups as much of a threat as ISIS.

The Parkland shooting was committed by someone with an Instagram littered with racism, showcasing ammo cases adorned with swastikas; the Austin Bomber was targeting African-American communities, claiming two lives; a member of Vanguard USA plowed his car into a crowd, murdering protester Heather Heyer in an anti-racist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Knowing white supremacist lingo and conspiracy theories makes it easier to appreciate just how Trump's silence, along with his words, encourage further violence and radicalization.

Black Men

Unarmed black men killed by police have their blood on Trump's hands. Orange Julius's administration is simply not interested in doing anything to address these killings, nor in addressing the fact that, nationwide, police shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in 2017.

Instead, on the issue of unarmed black men being killed by police, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "This is something that is a local matter. And that's something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time." Given the systemic nature of racism, this is an issue that stretches from the local level all the way to the White House. Trump simply doesn't want to do anything about it because he's a bigot who cares about nothing other than himself.

Transgender Americans

Murdered transgender Americans' blood is on Trump's hands. As reported by Fast Company, 2017 was one of the deadliest years for transgender people in the U.S; and transgender people of color are disproportionately the victims. On May, 2018, GLAAD, finally fed up with the needless violence, called for increased and accurate media coverage of transgender murders.

Instead of intervening to protect one of the most marginalized groups in America, Trump has repeatedly used transgender Americans to achieve his political ends by pushing for a ban of transgender soldiers in the military, which was struck down by the courts. He does this without remorse because he's incapable of feeling empathy, and he's spent his whole life protected from the consequences of his actions by immense privilege and wealth.

State Sponsored Killings Abroad

Those killed by oppressive regimes have their blood on Trump's hands. The government of Myanmar is perpetrating what Andrew Gilmour, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, calls, "widespread and systematic violence against the Rohingya," a Muslim minority. In Chechnya, there were concentration camps for and executions of gay and bisexual men. In the Phillippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has killed over 12,000 thanks to his "war on drugs," which has primarily been a pretense for murdering the urban poor.

These acts receive scant attention in US media markets, and even less from the decaying orange currently occupying the White House. The Worst of Us has done nothing to address these atrocities, although Trump boasts of "great relationship" with Philippines’ Duterte at first formal meeting. He did not, of course, address Duterte's human rights violations, and even praised him for the success of his campaign in combating the drug trade.

Opioid Crisis

Those who die because of opioid overdoses have their blood on Trump's hands. The epidemic of opioid overdoses disproportionately affects white, rural America. So, of course, Orange Julius campaigned on doing something about this horrible problem. And, of course, President Trump has done nothing about it.

President Sex Criminal's most recent proposal was just a regurgitation of the War on Drugs with minimal emphasis on addiction recovery and community intervention, which means that it's another policy doomed to failure. Meanwhile, simply making Narcan, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses, widely available and affordable could save tens of thousands of lives (since opioids have been claiming tens of thousands of lives). Unfortunately, Trump continues to do nothing because he doesn't actually care who lives and who dies.

Future Generations

All the lives lost to climate change disaster have their blood on Trump's hands. By pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, rolling back regulations, and aligning with coal and oil companies, The Worst of Us has all but guaranteed that most readers will be around to see the world fully dip into Childrenof Men territory in their lifetimes. As opposed to now, when the world is partially Children of Men. Yeah, you think all those super storms, droughts, and wildfires have nothing to do with climate change? Scientists report that extreme weather conditions are directly correlated to climate change, but why would President Trump listen to scientists when big oil is in his back pocket?

White Moderates

All of the blood on Trump's hands is also on the hands of the very White Moderates that Martin Luther King Jr. described in his Letter from Birmingham Jail as, "more devoted to 'order' than to justice". There's the 63% of white men and 52% of white women who voted for Trump, but then there are also all the white people who claimed, "I just can't vote for Hillary," even though she was on the ballot and they totally could have voted for Hillary.

The solution is not for white liberals to further engage with Trump supporters, but to engage with those who are most adversely affected by President Sex Criminal's policies. Not as white knights, but as equals. Lacking access to power does not mean not being powerful. These marginalized groups are who have been doing the heavy lifting that's been keeping America afloat from the beginning. They've been flexing their muscle this whole time because it takes more muscle to survive and thrive in a society rigged against you. Only this persistence will be the deciding factor to washing the blood off Trump's hands and his legacy from history books everywhere.